Acquired Tastes XLIII: Gay Pulp Fiction, Part 190 - Avon Publications, Part 3 of 4

Acquired Tastes XLIII: 

Gay Pulp Fiction, Part 190 

Avon Publications 

Part 3 of 4

Avon Publications is one of the leading publishers of romance fiction. At Avon's initial stages, it was an American paperback book and comic book publisher. The shift toward romance novels occurred in the early 1970s with multiple Avon romance titles reaching and maintaining spots on bestseller lists, demonstrating the market and potential profits in romance publication.

As of 2010, Avon became and remains an imprint of HarperCollins.

The interesting thing about Avon Publications is that they have always known the value of a gay audience, even back in the 1950's. This is particularly true in the 1970s when it comes to the imprint's support and proliferation of the bestselling books of Gordon Merrick, whose work we will take a look at in the final post of this series on Avon Publications.

I searched a number of archives held by university libraries - some of which are quite excellent (Cornell) and some were puzzling (Toronto - sorry, biographies, social studies, and theatrical plays do not qualify as gay pulp fiction). In any event, it all took way more time than I cared to spend, but down the rabbit hole I went. In the end, it was worth it, for I learned about several writers I was unfamiliar with and am not interested in reading.

I have decided to offer a mere sampling of the vintage gay-oriented titles Avon has offered throughout the years. If you happen to know of one or have a favorite Avon title I missed, please leave its title and author in the comments section. Keep in mind that there are at least three more posts regarding this imprint, and one of those will be dedicated to the works of Gordon Merrick. That said, I would love to track down more gay pulp fiction titles published by this imprint.

Today, we will take a look at select titles from the early 80's, as gay pulp literature moves into the mainstream and is marketed, more and more, as romance.

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 The Story of Harold

Author: Terry Andrews

Avon/Bard

1980.

49965

"For now - Relax! And come with me. You have no choice: I've invited you. We will have a lot of sex. You are going to laugh a great deal—people have no idea how blithe a suicide can be!—and you will meet a few human beings whom you'll have to love as much as I do."

With these words Terry Andrews, bestselling author of a beloved children's classic welcomes us to his world. The Story of Harold is a Dantesque excursion through a garden of tortured and unfulfilled relationships: one with a woman whom Terry sleeps with and cares for but cannot love completely; another with a surgeon, father of six, who is Terry's most cherished—and most unreciprocating—lover; and another with a sad young boy already doomed to a life of insecurity and failure, whom Terry strives to redeem—even as he prepares his own suicide. As Terry beguiles the boy further spellbinding exploits of Harold—the hero of his famous book—the reader follows Terry, with terror and pity, to the end of his appointed journey.

George Selden Thompson was an American author known professionally as George Selden. He also wrote under the pseudonym Terry Andrews. He is best known for his 1961 book The Cricket in Times Square, which received a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1963 and a Newbery Honor.

In 1974, under the pseudonym of Terry Andrews, Selden wrote the adult novel The Story of Harold, the story of a bisexual children's book author's various affairs, friendships, and mentoring of a lonely child, using the fairy tale of Rumplestilskin as an allegory. The book is very descriptive of the 1970s, including the sexual revolution. Moderately graphic scenes of sadomasochism, orgies and other sexual acts are narrated by Terry, the book's protagonist. It could be construed as somewhat autobiographical in the sense the author writes of a character who writes children's books. The relationship to the boy and also the author's own feelings regarding his own existence are the main keys in this novel.

Selden remained unmarried; a resident of Greenwich Village in New York City, he died there at age 60 from a gastrointestinal hemorrhage.

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Birdy

Author: William Wharton

 Avon Publications

1980

47282

Birdy is the debut novel of William Wharton, who was more than 50 years old when it was published. It won the U.S. National Book Award in category First Novel. It was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1980, ultimately losing to The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer.

Birdy was adapted as a film of the same name, directed by Alan Parker which stars Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage.

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Gaywick

Author: Vincent Virga

Avon Publications

 1980

75820

"He was only seventeen when he went to Gaywick to catalogue the vast library,.." 

Gaywyck is often considered the first gay Gothic novel. Long out of print, this classic proves the genre knows no gender. Young, innocent Robert Whyte enters a Jane-Eyre world of secrets and deceptions when he is hired to catalog the vast library at Gaywyck, a mysterious ancestral mansion on Long Island, where he falls in love with its handsome and melancholy owner, Donough Gaylord. Robert's unconditional love is challenged by hidden evil lurking in the shadowy past crammed with dark sexual secrets sowing murder, blackmail, and mayhem in the great romantic tradition. As Armisted Maupin urged, “Read the son of a bitch! You'll love it!” And as The Advocate praised, “An extraordinary tour de force that merits special praise.” Angus Wilson agreed, “I enjoyed Gaywyck very much. To me a fascinating mixture of Wilde, the Gothic and, above all, the souls laid to rest in New York.”

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Vermilion

Author: Nathan Aldyne

Avon Publications

1980

76596 

A dead young hustler is found on the lawn of a queer-baiting legislator. Boston's political and queer communities are up in arms about the matter, and police are bent on finding the killer - fast. Best friends Daniel Valentine and Clarisse Lovelace team up and hit the streets of Boston. Through a sinister underworld of bars and baths, bondage and blackmail, they're out to solve a very bizarre murder.

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Tory's

Author: William Snyder

Avon Publications

1981

76547

Tory Bacher, a young gay hustler sets up a trendy nightspot that surreptitiously offers any illicit pleasure its wealthy patrons may desire. 

A delightful comedy that could simply not have been written in this post AIDs world. It evokes a simpler, more carefree time in the gay community - a time when, while the community may not have enjoyed civil rights, they sure as hell had fun!

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A Comfortable Corner

Author: Vincent Virga

Avon Publications

 1982

80895

Terence Strange and Christopher More had been lovers for many years, but at last Terence could take no more of the mess alcoholism was making of their lives. Where could he find counsel? Surely not in Judith and Gerald, whose once-happy marriage was crumbling, nor in Dominic Perrugio and William More, Christopher's father, whose doomed relationship seemed a portent of Terence's future.

All their lives were bound together, but Terence had to disentangle himself from the web of hatred and find a way free to love.

Vincent Virga has been called "America's foremost picture editor." He has researched, edited, and designed picture sections for more than 150 books, including Eyes of the Nation: A Visual History of the United States and the full-length photo essay The Eighties: Images of America. He is also the author of A Comfortable Corner. He is working on a third novel, Theatricals. His life partner since 1964 is fellow writer James McCourt.

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A History of Shadows

Author: Robert C. Reinhart

Avon Publications

1982 

79616

The story of four friends - an actor, an interior designer, a film composer and a very closeted lawyer - whose lives intertwine, tracing their paths, and the paths of gay life in America, from 1936 to the Stonewall era.

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 Cobalt

Author: Nathan Aldyne

Avon Publications

1982

81117

Gay bartender Daniel Valentine and his female sidekick, Clarissa Lovelace set out to unravel a series of murders at a fashionable gay resort  in Provincetown on Cape Cod.

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Back Cover

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My Brother's Image

Author: Hamilton, Mark

Avon Publications

1983

82230

An unabashedly romantic novel about a young gay aristocrat in 18th century Amsterdam and his troubles in both love and politics, specifically an inquisition-like witch hunt focused on exposing and punishing gay people.

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Treasures On Earth

Author: Carter Wilson

Avon Books

Avon/Bard

1983

63305

In the mountains of Peru in 1911, while uncovering of the lost Incan city of Machu Picchu as part of an archeological team, Willie Hickler discovers his love for Ernesto, a young Peruvian.

Carter Wilson hails from Washington, DC. As a young man he lived in Mayan communities in southern Mexico, where he wrote and produced a documentary film, Appeals to Santiago, which is about an eight-day Mayan religious festival. Later he studied the Quechua people's use of coca leaf in Peru on a grant from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. He has published ethnographic fiction and non-fiction, including two books about Mayan Mexico and a children's novel about Netsilik Inuit of Canada. His first novel, Crazy February, has been widely adopted in college anthropology courses. A longtime gay activist, Wilson wrote the narration for two Oscar-winning documentaries, The Times of Harvey Milk (with Judith Coburn) and Common Threads. He received the Ruth Benedict Prize from the gay section of the American Anthropology Association for his Hidden in the Blood - a portrait, part social critique, part memoir, of sexual mores and homosexuality in provincial Mexico. He taught at Harvard, Stanford, Tufts University, and for 34 years at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

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Independence Day

Author: B.A. Ecker

Avon/Flare

1983

82990

High school student Michael comes to terms with the fact that he is gay, and on July 4th, Independence Day, decides to share his true feelings with his best friend Todd.

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And that's all for now.

Next week, we take a look at the works of Gordon Merrick, as published by Avon Publications.

Until then...

Thanks for reading.

Independence Day - Pat Benatar and Martina McBrid